


Blue Hydrangeas

by Kymopoleia



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Flowers, a few headcanons are going into this, i swear it makes sense in context, might explain, octavian is less of a shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-22 15:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2512601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kymopoleia/pseuds/Kymopoleia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Everything had been going well until Octavian decided he would spend some time alone.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>After Octavian's death and some time in the underworld, a certain goddess takes interest in him. She decides she wants him to be her errand boy, and Octavian doesn't remember his past enough to know why everyone hates him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everything had been going well until Octavian decided he would spend some time alone.

Octavian knew that the army was going to disintrigate at any moment. He knew any alliances he'd made were nothing but shams, and that he was as good as dead the moment the greeks were dead. He knew that it was too late to escape, knew it was too late to order the legion home, knew that if he so much as removed a ring, the roman military would crumble and he would be murdered.

Mike Kahale had not come back from his capture attempt with Dakota and Leila. Octavian had known that was likely. Never give responsibility to someone you trust, never give responsibility to someone you'd bedded, never give responsibility to someone you loved, if you could not bear to see them go.

Octavian's lip quivers as he stares at himself in the mirror. He's standing in the bathroom of the house they were using as base, on the second floor. He's been drinking, the ripe wine staining his teeth and tongue. Part of him, the part that cannot believe he is here, that he has led the camp to ruin, pulls out a phone. He turns it on, and notices his hands are shaking.

He makes a call, the numbers filling the screen. Of course, the owner does not answer.

"Grandmother, Elle, I wish you were still here. I wish that your home had not been destroyed when the greacus scum-" He breaks off into a sob. "I wish that you could give me advice, I need your strong words. I do not want to die-"

He drops the phone into the sink, and runs water over it, sinking to the floor to cry to himself.

His mantle slips to the floor. His eyes are raw and ugly and red. His mouth is dry and his cheeks wet. There is only an hour til dawn, til he launches the assault.

He misses his grandmother. He misses his family. He never got the chance to say anything to them, though he doubted he would have anything to truly say to them.

He misses his cat too. The sky outside the bathroom is dark black, but not for long. He knows that. Across his world, his cat is probably curled in his bed.

Octavian knows he will never touch her silky red and white fur again. He knows he will never scratch behind her ears or offer her a treat. He knows that whatever happens, he will die today.

When he can finally breathe again, he cleans his face, pulls his mantle back into place, and stares into the mirror for the second time.

His face is not one of a proud and just ruler, it is that of a man who knows he is going to die. A man who has lost all he truly cared for in one fell swoop, a man who is staring his executioner in the face and a man who has lost the will to beg his way out of this.

Octavian closes his eyes and removes the stopper from the sink, and drops the phone into the wastebasket.

Octavian knew he was tangled in the onager's load. How could he not know? His jewlery was pulling to the mound of metal, his robes tangled in it. Di Angelo and a blonde are there, and he interrupts them before they can inform him of the position he is in. Better to have their guilt rest on his own shoulders, no?

Mike Kahale shows up, and he accepts Octavian's orders. Octavian is both pleased and horrified.

With his last words- "Goodbye Gaea! Goodbye traitor Jason Grace!"- he sends himself up, the load catching on fire and burning him alive.

The last thing he sees is the greacus who started everything- the hispanic son of vulcan- riding atop a celestial bronze dragon, his eyes wide as he watches Octavian approach.

Everything goes blindingly white, then the world is not only dark, it is gone.

His golden necklaces pay for his passage across the styx. The lines are long, but when Octavian is judged, William Shakespeare takes a shining to him.

"So perfect, so tragic!" He said to the others. "I beg you, put him in Asphodel, never Punishment."

The others, Lincoln and some medieval prince, consent, and Octavian is sent on his way.

He removes his mantle before he steps into the Fields of Asphodel, tossing it onto the ground for someone other than himself to find. He finds himself quickly pushed into the middle of everything, finds himself quickly forgetting.

His friends go first. Faces, then names. Then his family, the same way.

He forgets what his position was. He forgets whom his godly relations are. He forgets why he wears gold jewelry, why he has an imperial gold dagger on a belt.

Then Octavian forgets more- he forgets his last name, forgets his life events, forgets everyone whom he has ever loved.

By the time a washed out woman with mounds of black hair and flowers covering her, Octavian only remembers the barest of essentials- the existence of his cat, but not her name or- oh Olympus, he cannot remember its gender. He remembers a grandmother, perhaps, some strong woman with a head of graying hair and cold gray eyes, he remembers a golden temple and he remembers expanses of dark skin pressing into his own.

Octavian is led to the palace, his watery blue eyes looking around slowly. He takes in everything he sees, every obsidian and onyx surface glinting in low firelight. He sees more silver, stygian iron, and black stone than he really knows how to percieve.

The woman finally takes him to a room with a few stools, a few cabinets, and a sink. There is also a large silver and glass thing that Octavian knows is a mirror, except, when he looks into it, he barely recognizes the person staring back at him.

The woman stands behind him, and Octavian looks at her in the mirror. She has pale blue makeup on, and her long, straight black hair frames her face nicely. There are hundreds of flowers in her hair, and over half of them are bright red pomegranate flowers- the rest of the flowers are pale, as if they had been bleached. She's in a dress, a greek style chiton, but it is as washed out as the flowers. Her skin, he can tell, is usually a beautiful vivid black, but right now it is pale and sickly. Somehow, Octavian knows he knows this woman.

"Who are you?" He whispers, his voice hoarse from disuse.

"Persephone, wife of Hades and Queen of the Underworld." She smiles at him with painted blue lips, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "And if you consent, then I can get out of the fields permanently."

"The fields of Asphodel?" Octavian asks.

Persephone nods.

"What am I consenting to?"

"Becoming my doulos, my oikatase, my diakonos. It's been far too long since I took one up, and you, Octavian, caught my eye."

Octavian feels there is something wrong with her sweet tone and her strange words, but he nods.

"So, do you consent?"

Octavian pauses, and thinks, trying to remember the life he'd left. He remembers nothing specific and no names at all, but he wonders if they would be ashamed of him if they saw him now. He wonders if this is the right choice.

"If I consent, may I ask about my old life?"

"To a degree."

Octavian thinks a moment more, then nods slowly. "I consent, lady Prosperine."

She laughs. "Persephone. I am a greek, and you will act for me as greeks acted for their patrons."

Octavian doesn't know why, but the mention of greeks sends a shiver down his spine.

He says "Yes ma'am." anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://ganymedestheholytwink.tumblr.com/post/101598133649/bbyph4t-what-an-angel  
> that is the headcanon persephone i'm using and she's beautiful when she is in the underworld she has straight hair


	2. Chapter 2

After consenting to be Persephone's (she used many terms, but the one she used most often was pais) pais, Octavian had spent a few hours being "reinvented".

Persephone didn't like his hair, so she cut it, giving him something she called an undercut. The top part was longer, and she put little strawberry blonde highlights in it, as well as these pale blue hydrangeas that made him look less murderous and sad, and more... Peaceful, sort of.

Persephone thought his lips were too pale, so she rubbed them with pomegranate juice.

Persephone thought he would look better with pale blue eyeliner, so she put it on him.

Persephone basically spent several hours doing whatever she wanted to Octavian, with Octavian being able to do little else than enjoy it. And, well, he really did enjoy it. Well, other than when she held up his left forearm and frowned to herself, pressing her fingers to the tattooed lyre. It burned for a moment, with Octavian being too caught off guard to scream, and when her hand was pulled away there was instead the symbol of a pomegranate.

"Perfect." Persephone said. "Now Apollo has no claim to you.

"Claim?" Octavian asks.

"No, no claim." Persephone booped his nose, and went back to choosing a new wardrobe.

She took his gold jewelry, which he had no idea as to the origins of, and replaced it with a few celestial bronze rings, an earring in the top curve of his left ear, a few celestial bronze bracelets, and a strange necklace. It has a length of brown leather cord, with celestial bronze beads on it and a thick ring with a giant onyx center. Persephone told him it would protect him, and that the ring mustn't leave him.

He couldn't argue with that. Or her.

The last thing Persephone does is strip him of the layers and layers of clothing, and give him a new outfit. A pair of faded jeans. A pair of white sandals, a pair of boxers, a pale blue shirt that is softer than he can comprehend, and a thick white and gray jacket. When he's fully dolled up, she opens up a pomegranate and puts the seeds into a flask, then goes around the room to find new items. A flask of something she called unicorn draught. A drawstring backpack that she told him would hold whatever he put into it (within reason), would not break, and would not let water deep through. She blessed his appearance and used some spring magic on the hydrangeas to make them a naturally occurring thing- aka, he would have to shave them from the sides of his undercut, but let them grow on top. And oh, he was promised, they would grow.

Octavian's final gift was a dagger, celestial bronze and long as his forearm. Then Persephone embraced him, promised his makeup was not going to come off, but that there was doubles of everything in his bag and a blessing from her in the form of a crystal pomegranate, and told him that he needed to speak to Chiron, before she whispered Greek words in his ear and, in a way that felt too similar, he disappeared into something dark.

When Octavian came to, he was waking up in a strawberry field. Up on a hill is a familiar Greek style house, huge and imposing. There's also an enormous statue that he might recognize as the Athena Parthenos.

His head hurts, but he just stands and wipes the dirt off of himself before starting up the hill.

Getting dirt in gladiator sandals was not the highlight of his day, and when he reaches the hill, neither is being surrounded by a group of adolescents with spears and camouflage. They look like poster children for a hunting magazine.

"Excuse me?" He asks.

A centaur trots up behind the teens, and smiles at Octavian. "Sorry, welcome to Camp Half Blood."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got so pissed I had to completely rewrote this chapter bc when I went to post it it straight up disappeared off my notes I was gonna straight up cry

Octavian looks up at the centaur. "I am looking for Chiron."

"I am Chiron."

Octavian digs through his bag and offers the centaur the crystal pomegranate. He cracks it open to read the message, then looks Octavian over critically.

"Clarisse," Chiron said. "Take him to Cabin 17. This is a blessing from lady Persephone, saying that he is under her protection and that she is withholding his name until she is sure the first half of the blessing is unneeded. His nickname until then is Pais."

The girl whom Octavian assumes is Clarisse snorts and leans on her spear, shooing her sibling away. "Pais? And we sure we can trust him? He looks familiar."

Octavian has to bite back a retort, though he's unsure why being 'familiar' is a bad thing.

"Just take him to the cabin, displeasing the goddess of spring is not a good idea when our crops grow in that time." Chiron winks at Octavian before turning to trot off. Clarisse leads him down into the camp.

There is a lot of space and a lot of people, all ones whom Octavian wholeheartedly assumes are demigods or legacies-

Wait, what? He can't remember exactly what a legacy is, but he knows that they exist just as surely as demigods do.

The cabin he finds himself at looks strange. From the front it looks like a white country house with a big porch, and he only has a few seconds to look at it before Clarisse shoves him into the only odd part on the porch, a pillar. Well, there are a pair of white columns, smooth and marble all the way to the top.

"Be good, Pais, or I'll send you back to the goddess in pieces, regardless of consequences." She hisses. "This camp is my home and you won't ruin that."

Then she leaves. Just like that.

The porch is nice when Octavian has time to look at it. A bench suspended on chains just this side of creaky, white wicker rocking chairs, and a thick leather trunk being used as a coffee table. He can just barely see the top of a tree above the cabin, and assumes it is behind the cabin. The door directly in front of the porch steps is white wood and glass, but there is a second one in front of that that is a screen door. The screen door is open, the glass door closed, and a pair of gauzy pink curtains hide the rest from view.

Octavian knocks, and something happens immediately.

The door opens in front of him, a tiny girl that looks much too young to be having a dagger on her belt and too cute with the puff of curly black hair, freckles on dark skin, and giant floppy fabric pomegranate flower tucked into her ponytail band. She looks up at him expectantly.

Then, behind her, a thirteen year old boy with pale skin, pale hair, and intense green eyes leans on the doorframe. Well, now that he looks, both of their eyes are varying intensities of green, from the soft yellow green of the girl's, to her half brother's deep green.

Then a pomegranate is chucked at Octavian from within the cabin, and he doesn't duck in time

Octavian awakens for the second time that day in a bunk in Cabin 17.

In the center of the room is a fenced in strip containing a stream bubbling over rocks. From the stream grow some cattails, and spreading outwards from the stream are sweet grasses and small flowers. Octavian cannot tell if there is actual floor under the living carpet, but when he settles his bare feet onto it, he can feel the life and spring magic thrumming breath his toes, can feel the slight push it gives him, as of wanting to help him move off that particular patch.

There are three beds on the long sides of the room, beneath a pair of massive windows. At the moment, gauzy green curtains are drawn over them and fluttering in a faint breeze.

Only half the beds are occupied. Octavian is in the middle bunk on the left side, and the last two on either side are filled with the pair he saw when he opened the door. Each bed has a deep green spread, covered in tiny little plants and leaves that were soft enough to ignore but still there. The pillows seemed normal, but Octavian didn't look inside. There were picnic blankets everywhere, all grass stained and thin and just the right side of soft. They were usually red plaid or red checkered, but the one on the girl's bed was pale yellow with purple and blue butterflies printed on it. 

There is a massive tree at the back of the room with thick branches all through the room, the top of it stretching out a sunroof which doesn't actually seem solid, or to let in anything other than a soft light.

Each bunk has four tall posts, with vines wrapping so thickly around them that Octavian cannot see the wood. At the foot of the bed is a huge wicker basket with blue hydrangeas growing in it, pushing their way up through the cracks in the wicker. He can see his dagger and backpack inside.

The vines on the bedposts each have flower buds, all the same pale yellow, but only the ones on the top right bedpost are blooming.

"My name is Max." days the boy, interrupting his study of the cabin. "And that girl is Addy. We hope you don't mind, we read the blessing Mom chucked at your head. It wasn't meant for you anyways, it was telling us who you were and like, that you were here because she wanted you to be and stuff. Cool."

The small black girl, Addy, pipes up, her voice sounding like the whisper of a breeze through rustling leaves. "Welcome to Cabin 17, Pais!"

"What are the flowers?" Octavian asks. 

Max explains that they're a gift from Persephone, and each post has a different time-oriented flower on it. The top left post has morning-blooming flowers that bloom at seven am and taste like blueberry bagels. Top right is lunch, at twelve am with salad flavored blooms. Bottom right post is dinner at six pm with roast beef that doesn't taste as bad as it sound, and the bottom left post is a midnight snack of watermelon and ice cream at one am. Each blooms lasts an hour and a half, and will be replaced by two more if eaten.

Max also explains that the pomegranate tree grows perfectly ripe pomegranates that will only rot when plucked off the branch. He also mentions that the crystal pomegranates bloom over their pillows when Persephone wishes to send the encouragements, brownies, quests, and other typical mom things. And, since it was solely her spring magic powering the system, there was no chance of other gods meddling and intercepting a message or, gods forbid, tampering with it.

Octavian leaned back in the bed, listening to the pair talk. At the moment, they were telling him that they had an amicable familial relationship, and that he was welcome to become their brother as long as he didn't do anything to dishonor Persephone's wishes.

Octavian promised- pinkie promised- Addy he would consider it. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ju st ttake it

Octavian's first day at camp half blood is interesting. Max showed him the facilities while Addy went to the Demeter cabin to sit and chat, and there was a lot to see. With everything that had already happened, Octavian feels just this side of overwhelmed. By the time they're back at cabin 17, all he wants to do is take something for his headache and take a long, long nap. Preferably in that order.

But no, when they get back the dinner buds are blossoming and they're heading for the dining pavilion. He feels like there's something wrong with the picture ahead of him, and all of the tables full of people who varied in age but never looked thirty and almost never looked twenty.

Addy, Max, and himself sit at a table and plates of food are swept in front of Addy and Max. Octavian sees a bunch of food on the plates, and frowns. He decides to try something, and whispers the first food that comes to mind.

"California sushi."

Immediately, a plate is swept in front of him, and his face lights up. This felt familiar, somehow. When he pulls his cup up, he whispers "ginger tea, extra sugar", and it fills. 

"Cool, huh?" Max asks, smiling at Octavian. 

Octavian nods, but then he feels eyes on himself and looks around subconsciously.

At one of the tables sits someone alone, with a head of short blond hair, a scar on the left side of his upper lip, and eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Octavian knows he knows this person, but he can't remember how or who he is- it's so frustrating.

Then a look of realization dawns on the boy's face, and his jaw drops. Thunder rumbles ominously, and Octavian blinks in confusion. 

Addy frowns up at the sky and some whispering erupts from campers as a silence falls. It doesn't seem anyone is sure of what to do, except that they look between the sky, the blond, and Octavian.

There is no other looks of knowledge, but confusion and a hint of panic. Whoever this is that Octavian has attracted the attention of, he's dangerous.

Chiron, the centaur from earlier, goes to the blond to see what's wrong. They speak in hushed tones, and then the blond gets up and heads for his cabin, leaving his food on the table. Chiron goes to Octavian, and beckons for him to follow.

Chiron leaves him at the door of cabin 1 after a tense, quiet walk. Octavian tried to ask what was happening, but the centaur refused to answer.

Octavian steps into the cabin nervously, twisting the ring on his right index finger nervously. "Hello?" he calls.

He's pushed against a wall as soon as the door closes, and the blond is too close.

" _Octavian_ ," he hisses. "Could have sworn Nico said you were dead."

Octavian gapes at him, wondering what kind of person he'd been when alive to warrant this. He doesn't remember enough, his life has become a puzzle with 90% of the pieces missing and burning in front of him.

"I, I was." Octavian whispers and his shoulders are squeezed.

"Then how the hell are you back? And why the hell did you come to the Greek camp? Are you trying to destroy us?"

"I, I, no." Octavian replies shakily. Destroy the camp? Why would he do that?

"Because that's what you wanted to do before. How long have you been back? What the fuck are you plotting?"

Just now, Octavian realizes the fear in the other's face.

"Persephone came to me this morning, last night, I don't know when." He finally answers. "I don't know what you are talking about and I do not know who you are. Now, the goddess wishes me unharmed, so if you will..." He waits expectantly.

"Bullshit." The blond replies. "You, not know who I am? Not know what I'm talking about? What is that goddess planning?"

"If I knew, I would tell you." Octavian crossed his arms. "Except I wouldn't, because I don't know you and I don't know your name, or why you're dead convinced I want to make this place into ruins."

The blond states at him warily, and steps back. He opens his mouth to say something, but then something winds its way between Octavian's legs.

He looks down to see a rust red and white Persian cat, and he blinks for a moment before he picks it up.

"Is this mine?" He asks.

"You don't remember." Jason says, tone flat.

"Must we repeat this conversation? No I do not. I don't even know what gender it is." He shifts the cat, then nods. "Alright, I don't know her name. I don't remember anything except for a face, a body that did not match the first face, a gold temple, and this cat."

"What did the body look like? The face?"

"The face was an old woman with short, curled gray hair and dark gray eyes. She had glasses and a gray sweater, and a gold necklace with a cupid pendant on it. The body," He sighs, putting a hand on his forehead. "It was, uh. Dark. Scarred. The arms were thick, muscles taut, and there was a tattoo on the right forearm of a dove and the letters SPQR and three lines."

The blond's eyebrows rise, but he nods. "Keep going."

Octavian doesn't want to describe the rest. "And I remember it pressed against mine. I remember it's... His hand reaching out for mine, touching my wrist. Alright? That's what I remember."

The blond goes to sit on a white marble bed, and points at the one next to it for Octavian.

"My name is Jason, the name of the guy you remember is Mike Kahale, and the cat is Denny."

Octavian sits down, petting the cat.

"Is she yours?"

"Only after you died. Mike didn't want her, and Reyna could care less. Obviously, the ideal choice would have been Elle, your grandmother, but..." Jason trails off.

"What?"

"She died in an accident."

Octavian bites his lip. "Oh."

"You got Denny about four years before you died. We were all drunk as hell, and at a Denny's out of Camp Jupiter. You saw this pitiful kitten covered in trash, and insisted we pick her up. It was three am, and I helped you clean her off in the bathroom- that was before Mike. We weren't quite friends, but we understood each other. Then Mike came, you became more focused on power and the pursuit of it, and then about three years later I disappeared. Then there was Gaea, and you were..." Jason shook his head. "You died. You were remembered as savior of New Rome, but the Greeks don't quite agree. That's the only part about this that could be ruined, if they realize who you are, they might have leverage over the Romans, and there might be another fight."

Octavian isn't quite sure what to say. What to do. Why would he be important enough to matter in something like this?

"You being here isn't..." Jason sighs. "It's not a good idea. You being alive is a bad idea."

Octavian stares at him silently. There are aren't many more words said.

**Author's Note:**

> information on terms taken from https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080328090250AA8WtVZ  
> ideas mostly came from the octavian tag on tumblr and an au i've had rolling in my head for a while called "persephone's hobby"  
> the grandmother came from a headcanon family line of mine for octavian, her name is Elle and she is a powerful old woman who loves her grandson a lot. she's a demigod daughter of Cupid and takes literally none of Octavian's shit.  
> The cat? Well, you'll learn about her.  
> Let me know if you think I should use a fave crackship of mine in this (stolltavian) or the ever popular (not) jason/octavian.


End file.
